Classic Poem

I PLAYED with you 'mid cowslips blowing,
— When I was six and you were four;
When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
— Were pleasures soon to please no more.
Through groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
— With little playmates, to and fro,
We wandered hand in hand together;
— But that was sixty years ago.

You grew a lovely roseate maiden,
— And still our early love was strong;
Still with no care our days were laden,
— They glided joyously along;
And I did love you very dearly —
— How dearly, words want power to show;
I thought your heart was touched as nearly;
— But that was fifty years ago.

Then other lovers came around you,
— Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
— The center of its glittering sphere.
I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
— On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
O, then, I thought my heart was breaking, —
— But that was forty years ago.

And I lived on, to wed another:
— No cause she gave me to repine;
And when I heard you were a mother,
— I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
— Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
My joy in them was past expression; —
— But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely,
— You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;
— But I too had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glistened
— Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow,
Than when my youngest child was christened: —
— But that was twenty years ago.

Time passed. My eldest girl was married,
— And I am now a grandsire gray;
One pet of four years old I've carried
— Among the wild-flowered meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure,
— Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket's ample measure, —
— And that is not ten years ago.

But though first love's impassioned blindness
— Has passed away in colder light,
I still have thought of you with kindness,
— And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever-rolling silent hours
— Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
— Will be an hundred years ago.